CITING WITHIN THE TEXT OF THE PAPER

MLA format requires parenthetical references rather than formal footnotes.  You must indicate where you took your information from and where you used it in your paper.  The parenthetical citation refers to an item in your works cited list.  Here is an example: (Kaku, 55) where Kaku is the author and 55 is the page in the work that has ideas, facts or words you are incorporating into your text.  If you mention the author’s name, Kaku, in your discussion, you need only note the page (55).   If multiple works by an author appear in the list of works cited, use part of the title of the work to distinguish which publication you are referring to. Examples:

          Finlay in his History of Art uses illustrations of famous works of art to underline the developing use of color (43  

         An important development in the history of art was Henry’s use of flax to make linen sails and artists discovery of this medium followed (Finlay, History of Art 44).

Footnotes and Endnotes

The 9^th edition of the MLA Handbook states in Chapter 7 that though “the MLA’s system of documentation relies on in-text references . . . sometimes a note is needed to provide commentary or additional information.” If notes are used 
(either endnote or footnote), the number of the note would appear in the text[1] and the note would be at the bottom of the page or at the end of the paper in this format:

       [1] Several other studies offer more insight into the additional findings of the survey. See Pyle, 56-60, Smith and Jones, 14 and Temple 80-82.         

WORKS CITED LIST – Citing Print Books and Dissertations
Entire Book, One Author

Finlay, Victoria. The Brilliant History of Color in Art.  The John P. Getty Museum, 2014.
Entire Book, Two Authors
MacLaury, Robert E., and Galina V. Paramei.  Anthropology of Color: Interdisciplinary
              Multilevel Modeling.  Benjamins, 2007.

Entire Book, Three or More Authors
Quirk, Randolph, et al.  A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman, 1985.

Entire Book, Corporate Author
National Research Council. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World’s Population. National
            Academy, 2000.

Entire Book, No Author (Anonymous – without an author name)
The Holy Bible. Eng. Standard Version, Crossway-Good News, 2003.

 The New York Public Library Desk Reference. Macmillan, 1998.

• OWL at Purdue MLA Formatting Guide
  These OWL resources will help you learn how to use the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation and format style. This section contains resources on in-text citation and the References page, as well as MLA sample papers, slide presentations, and sample paper.
• MLA Handbook - online version at the MLA Handbook at the MLA website
• Sample papers in MLA Style from the MLA website.